"We had to go up against it and we still got the bronze and the silver from it. But it's hard to take.

"You either get on with it or go home crying."

As her daughter prepares to run for Scotland in the 5,000m in Australia, McColgan stressed that athletes must ignore scandal and concentrate on their own performance.

"It's not a clean sport," she said. "In the UK, we do everything to support an anti-drug programme.

Daughter Eilish McColgan is competing in the 5,000m in Australia

"With the likes of me, I got a silver medal and I know that should have been gold.

"And I can sit back and just cry about it or bleat about it, but it doesn't make a difference."

McColgan's daughter has previously spoken out about drugs, calling for a standardised system of testing throughout the world, but her mother is stressing that Eilish will simply be concentrating on her own form in Australia.

"You just have to look at your event and decipher how you're going to be best at that event," she added.

"That's what I went off and did and that's what I do with Eilish.

"You don't look at who's running. You look at you as an athlete and how best you can perform and what we can do to make that better."